27.8.11

Facebook vs. Google Plus: Social network showdown

There has been a lot of buzz aboutÂ Google Plus lately and how it may be able to challengeÂ Facebook for social network dominance. So far it has made an impressive start, signing up more than 20 million users in the first month. However, Facebook has 750 million members and it is still growing strong and most people will only want to use a single social network to keep in touch with their friends.

I have been using Google Plus since its launch and while I like how it has combined many of the features of Facebook and Twitter together, it’s not very useful when only about 5 of my friends regularly use it. The audience so far is predominately technical geeks and other people in the technology industry, which doesn’t always make for the most exciting socializing. This may change as the social network grows as Google has the money and the technical expertise to pull it off.

Overall, Google Plus is an impressive product and it’s forcing Facebook to innovate faster (and respect people’s privacy a little more) which is good for everyone. This infographic provides some interesting statistics and visual data on the social network showdown between Facebook and Google Plus.